06/15/2010

Well today was really interesting. I get to work about 9am and me, Nick, and Ari round with Dr. Asorri through the maternity ward. We stop at Ward One which has all the mothers that just delivered babies or had c-sections and are spending at 3 days there. Not much examining goes on here, he pretty much writes “date: no major complaints today, well, plan: discharge.” Then we go to Ward Two which has women that are in the labor process or something has gone wrong with their deliveries. Again not much examining goes on here, except he does check to see how far along the delivers are going (2 cm, 3cm, etc). Then we move to the other wing and that’s where the surgical room is, the delivery room, and the preparation room. Then Dr. Asorri goes down to the OPD (outpatient department) and returns later in the day.
Another doctor was there and Nick and I watched him do surgery on a woman that had an ectopic pregnancy and removed some “debris” from her other fallopian tube, he removed her entire left ovary (the one that had the ectopic fetus) and I’m not sure if that was totally necessary or that is how it is done in the US, but he did it. Also she was awake during the process, they only gave her a spinal injection to numb her from her mid abdomen and beyond. So he finished up with her and Nick and I went to find Ari who was with Dr. Asorri and he was performing what he called a “missed abortion.” This lady was “pregnant” for 6 months but not fetus had been produced. The egg was without a yolk he said, so he needed to remove the material from her uterus. Initially I thought she was crying out in pain, but they gave her 2ml shot of Ked amine which is a horse tranquilizer and used as a party drug and she was hallucinating! It was crazy, I had to go get the nurse to get a shot of Valium to calm her down, so they give them this upper and mix with a downer…sometimes they can’t even keep these women on the ward after the procedure because they are hallucinating so badly. It’s really crazy and it was hard not to laugh because this just seems to normal to everyone there. So after that, Nick and I went back to surgery to see a hernia being repaired (the surgical ward was too full, so more non-maternity surgeries were performed up there). Then my day was over and we will back tomorrow to see more deliveries and surgeries.